


When Life Gives You Lemons

by obsidianlullaby



Category: Homestuck
Genre: 1920s, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-29
Updated: 2012-12-29
Packaged: 2017-11-22 19:32:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/613463
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/obsidianlullaby/pseuds/obsidianlullaby
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A young bartender is in love with a thief and does not believe in minding her own business.</p>
            </blockquote>





	When Life Gives You Lemons

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Phrenotobe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phrenotobe/gifts).



> Rodent, my lovely beta, did a [gorgeous drawing](http://contra-positive.tumblr.com/post/39083971704/quick-fanart-for-fans-ladystuck-work-because) of the Aradia that appears in this story, check it out!

The first time you see her, you’re just starting your shift. She’s slipping her arms into a knee-length, fur-lined coat and donning her hat. She smiles as she passes you on her way to the door. You take note because there aren’t all that many other trolls about on Derse these days, and she is one fine specimen of a troll.

“Who was that?” you ask your coworker. 

He shrugs. “Some broad, she comes in every day. Does the sort of business you don’t ask questions about, y’know?”

You nod but ask anyway. You never were very good at minding your own business. “She doesn’t look like an enforcer.”

He scowls at you. “She’s a thief, far as I can tell. Now, you gonna stand around and talk all day or get to work?”

You smile at him and sashay over to a patron, grabbing a glass as you go.

Thief, huh?

 

 

She comes in while you’re working the next day. She meets your eyes for a moment, smiles, then goes to take a seat next to a man dressed all in black. She reaches into her bag, pulls something out of it, and discreetly passes it to him under the table. They exchange a few words, and he starts to walk away. She grabs his wrist, and he snarls.

Startled, you gesture to the bouncer, worried that they’re going to start something. It turns out to be unnecessary, though. She whispers something you can’t make out. The man growls throws an envelope down on the table in front of her. After examining its context, she smiles sweetly and released him. You breathe a sigh of relief.

She walks toward you, and you busy yourself with cleaning a glass. She leans against the bar, right in front of you. Her long hair curls in every direction with a sort of graceful chaos. Her eyes are maroon, and you can see hints of the same color flushing her cheeks. Her horns are curly, too. She’s small and round, quite the contrast to your own willowy physique. She wears a sparkly quartz necklace, which serves the questionable purpose of drawing your eyes to her chest. You quickly look away until she speaks.

She takes her time about it. She’s examining you, much the same way you had just examined her, except she’s not so shy about it.

“Hell-o,” she finally says, her voice deepening, just a touch, on the ‘o’.

“Good evening,” you say, inclining your head. “What can I do for you?”

“Oh, you’re already doing quite a lot for me,” she grins. You blush and nearly drop the glass. She giggles. Her eyes crinkle, and dimples appear on her cheeks. “I’d like a lemonade, please,” she says, and sets a handful of coins down on the counter.

“Lemonade?” you ask skeptically, even as you reach for the bottle. “You don’t seem like the lemonade type.” 

You pour her a glass, which she takes. Her fingers touch against yours, and you can’t tell if it was an accident or not. “I’m not,” she says cryptically, before taking a long swig. When she sets the glass down, she adds, “It’s a sentimental thing, I suppose. To honour someone.”

“What sort of someone?” you find yourself asking.

She smirks. “A boy.”

You swallow. “Romantic?” you ask, looking away from her.

She keeps you in suspense for a moment, empties the glass with a second sip, and then purrs the word “pale”.

You feel a little ashamed of how relieved that makes you.

“So what was all that about?” you ask, nodding to the table she had just vacated.

She shrugs. “Business.”

“It looked more like a disagreement, to me.”

She gazes at you and tucks a curl behind her ear. “A disagreement about business. I deliver my side and expect my client do the same. Sometimes they take offense to that.”

“He looked pretty scary,” you say, thoughtfully. “But he didn’t want a fight with you.”

“No,” she agrees. “He didn’t.” Then, “You ask a lot of questions.”

You smile and look at from beneath your long, carefully-tended eyelashes. “So I’m told.”

The two of you are silent, for a while, and you grow increasingly self-conscious under her stare, until she finally asks. “When do you get off work?”

“Two more hours,” you whisper, your voice throaty.

“You know the diner down the street?” You nod. “Meet me there.” Then she leans in, grabs you by the apron, and pulls you in for a kiss. You can taste the lemonade on her lips as she traces your teeth with her tongue, and it is good, it is so good. Someone whistles, and your boss clears his throat. Then it’s over, and she’s already out of the door before you’ve caught your breath.

 

 

She--Aradia, you do learn her name that night, you’re not in that much of a hurry to get her undressed--comes to the bar every evening, always during your shift now. Every evening she trades a package for an envelope with the sorts of people who don’t make small talk. You ask her about it, sometimes. Usually, her only answer is to point to the newspaper, where a high-end theft is invariably reported. She takes a sort of quiet pride in it, you think. You aren’t sure how her clients find her, but she is never short of work. Neither is she ever in much apparent danger of being caught. Investigators talk to her sometimes, she tells you, but they’re nothing she can’t handle. You worry, but you keep it to yourself. You always worry. 

But yes, every evening she trades a package for an envelope with the sorts of people who don’t make small talk. Every evening she orders a lemonade and downs it in two gulps. Every evening she kisses you in full view of everyone in the bar, and, then, every night she kisses you where no one can see.

You are blissfully happy, despite your doubts and concerns, and you think, maybe, she is happy too.

Until, one evening, she doesn’t come.

 

 

A man comes in, scans the room, sits down, orders nothing, and fidgets uncomfortably. This is how they all are, the ones who come to do business with Aradia. They aren’t at ease, at home here like she is. They jump to attention when she enters the room and leave as soon as possible. The funny thing about is that you’ve seen some of them here before--it’s just when they’re here to do business, her business, that they tend to fall apart.

This one, he looks about as uncomfortable as you feel. She should have been here by now, you can practically hear him thinking. You’re thinking it too.

Finally, when your shift is just ending, and he still hasn’t ordered anything, and half of the patrons are openly staring at him, he starts to stand.

You walk over to him. “Excuse me,” you say, as he struggles with his coat.

He spins, reaching for something concealed under his jacket. He seems bashful when he sees you and moves his hand back into plain sight.

“‘Ello,” he says, hoarsely.

You glance around, wondering if this is really a good idea. You don’t waste much time with your doubts, though. The smile you treat him to is big, innocent, endearing, and just a little shy--one of your best. “If you’re on your way out, would you be willing to walk me home? It’s not far, but I hear there’ve been attacks, and I’m just a bit too frightened to go alone.”

No one can resist a damsel in distress. “It’d be my pleasure,” he says, holding out his arm. You take it, and you are not three steps outside the bar before you twist it around his back and push him against the wall.

“Oy!” he grunts. “What do you think you’re doing!”

“You came to see Aradia, didn’t you?” you hiss. “Where is she? What do you know?”

“I’m not telling you a damn--” You break his wrist. “Fuck!” he screams. “You’re a fucking bartender! What the hell?”

“A bartender with a past,” you say, coolly, and press down on his wrist. “Now answer my questions.”

“I’m just the courier!” he cries. “I don’t know anything!” You squeeze. He screams and sobs weakly against the wall. “Okay,” he gasps. “Okay. My employer said he’d hired her to retrieve something from the Felt Mansion. That’s all I know, I swear!”

The Felt Mansion. You silently curse Aradia for being stupid enough to take a job there. However, you don’t think the courier is lying. Just to be safe, you slam his head against the wall and break into a dead sprint away from him. He shouts curses all the way after you.

The Felt Mansion is not somewhere you’ve ever felt much desire to enter. Even aside from all the rumours about the place, the exterior was quite garish. You couldn’t imagine that the interior was any better. All the same, it seems you had no choice but to go. Well, okay, you had a rather obvious choice, but you weren’t about to wait around for Aradia to sort things out on her own. If she wasn’t going to be punctual, she would have to face the consequences.

You stalk off in the direction of the mansion.

 

 

The mansion is a fucking maze, and you never thought you could hate the color green as much as you do by the time you find your way to a room with chattering voices and soft moans coming from it. You enter and find Aradia tied to a chair, surrounded by bizarre little green creatures wearing hats with different colors and numbers. You stare, openmouthed. Luckily, they are too concerned with arguing with each other to notice you while your guard is down. Aradia locks eyes with you, and that effectively pulls you back to earth.

She doesn’t look badly injured, but she’s roughed up enough that you go cold. She’s gagged, and there are smears of dried blood on her face.You hiss with anger, which is enough to make one of the green things--the Felt, you guess--take notice. It points at you and chatters wildly. Gradually, the others turn and spot you as well. They seem surprised to see you, which is just as well because it simplifies the process of bisecting several of them. One of them moves faster than should be possible away from you, only to run into another of them that is about a third of the way through the process of taking its second step. You leave those two alone, along with the others that you missed, and hurry to Aradia’s side. You cut her loose, and, once she’s collected herself, she throws the remaining Felt against the walls with a few simple swipes of her hands.

“Kanaya!” she exclaims as she stands. “What is that thing you’re holding?”

“It’s a hedgetrimmer. I thought it might prove useful.”

“It’s very loud,” Aradia observes.

“Well, I like it. Can we go now?”

Aradia grins. “Not yet. I still haven’t found what I came here to get.”

“Just leave it. It was foolish to come here at all.”

“You came.” You glare at her, but she just grabs your arm and leads you through the labyrinthian house. “Come on! With the both of us, this will be a walk in the park. I wonder why I never thought to bring you before.”

The two of wander around in there for a very long time, tiptoeing and peering around every corner as though stealth matters at all when you’re trailing blood behind you. She insists on looking in every single room, and you are just about to ask what you ever did to deserve to be subjected to this endless display of tastelessness when a loud click makes you jump.

Aradia laughs at you. “It’s just a clock, ticking. Don’t worry so much. We’ve already killed a bunch of them,” she reminds you.

“Exactly. They won’t be much inclined to just let us go now, will they?”

Aradia just shrugs that off.

Finally, the two of you stumble upon a room with a locked door. None of the other doors had been locked. Aradia looks at you, and you shrug. She backs up, preparing to knock the door down, when it abruptly opens on its own.

Actually, not on its own. On the other side of the door is a guy with a cueball head dressed in a lovely white suit with a dress shirt and bowtie (unfortunately) the same repulsive lime green of everything else in this house. You want to be surprised, but, at this point, you’re just glad that something is breaking the tedium.

“I’ve been expecting you,” he says.

“Oh,” you say. Aradia kicks you. You kick her back, on principle.

“Come in,” he says, and he stands aside.

After a moment, Aradia steps in, and you follow. “Is it here?” she asks. Her back is straight, her voice is strong. She looks like she has never felt more secure, more in control. She is a very good actor, your matesprit.

He laces his fingers together. “You know I’m not going to tell you that.”

“What?” you ask, looking from Aradia to the cueball guy. Aradia you could understand, she always just charges ahead and lets everyone else catch up on their own time, but the familiarity in the cueball guy’s voice throws you. “What’s going on?”

“And you,” cueball guy said (without answering your question), “are the lovely Kanaya. I would say welcome, but, seeing as you’re here to rob me...”

“Technically,” you begin, but he interrupts you.

“Yes, yes, she’s here to rob me, I know.” He sighs. You are rather confused as to how he manages it, but he does. You wonder what his head would look like if you cut it open. “Now kindly leave.”

Aradia opens her mouth, probably to argue, but you elbow her and look pointedly at the door to make your stance clear. In true Aradia fashion, she ignores you.

“Why shouldn’t we just kill you and take the cue ball?”

“We want his head?” you ask, utterly bewildered.

“You stand no chance of killing me,” he answers as though you hadn’t even spoken. “You know that, don’t you?”

Aradia looks furious. You are starting to feel sort of uncomfortable.

“Let’s just go,” you whisper, even though you’re pretty sure the two of you could take him, and you wonder why Aradia doubts it.

“Fine,” she spits. “But don’t think I won’t be back.”

“Thinking is pointless when one already knows the answer,” cueball guy muses.

Aradia storms out, and you shuffle after her.

“Where are you going?” you ask her. “I thought the exit was in the other direction--although, I see how I might have gotten turned around.”

“You’re not turned around,” Aradia snorts. “I just want to break something.”

And she proceeds to break every single clock in the mansion before walking out the front door with her chin held high. You’re beyond asking questions.

 

 

“I’m usually much more subtle than all that,” she explains later that night. “I’m actually pretty awesome.”

“Of course you are, dear,” you say indulgently as you cuddle up beside her. “Are you going to tell me what you were doing there. What was that about a cueball?”

“It--I don’t really want to talk about it. The person who hired me--” her mouth twisted in distaste. “It’s complicated. And hey, what was up with you come after me, anyway?” she asks, as though she was only now realizing that this had been out of the ordinary.

“I’ve been told that I am disposed to meddling in other people’s business,” you admit with a small smile.

“Well, I like you that way,” she says and presses her lips to yours.


End file.
